NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



54/ 



partly use thoiv \vings like shovels to scatter the sand to the winds. 

 Mr. Lau concludes wnth the following incident, which occuiTed near 

 Yaudilla, November, 1867, and is told with characteristic German 

 zest : " I shall relate an adventure wliieli nearly deprived me of my 

 life had not the all-protecting hand of Providence averted such a 

 calamity. One day, in the month of November, being very hot, I went 

 to a sand ridge near Tummaville cattle station, belonging to Yandilla, 

 twelve miles to the south of it, in search of Bee Birds' eggs. Seeing 

 two of these birds on a bush, I soon detected their homestead. I 

 managed to jirocure a stiff stick for opening the passage, working hard 

 to a distance of three feet, thinking bottoming the hole and doing so 

 felt sometliing slipping in my hand ; repeating my grasp suggested 

 yoimg birds, the second time the toiich was evidently cold. It stiiick 

 me an iguana was the intruder, as I had seen before such animals 

 coming out of similar places with a 3'oung Bee Bird in its mouth. 

 Well, working the stick to tlie end, I perceived something got hold of 

 the point, and, by gradually extracting the stick, beheld to my gi-eat 

 horror a brown snake five feet long — one of the most venomous of its 

 kind — savagely biting the point. I dragged it to the entrance by its 

 teeth and quickly despatched the arch-enemy, thanking my God for 

 the release of so gi'cat a danger. Finding myself full of nervousness, 

 I hastened home to allay such a feeling hy drinking a glass of brandy 

 and water." 



Sub=order — Halcyones. 



FAMILY— ALCEDINID^ : KINGFISHERS. 



Sub-family — Alcedinin^. 



437. — Alcyone azure.^, Latham. — (69 and 70) 

 A. (lifmenensis, Gould. 



BLUE KINGFISHER. 



Figure. — Gould : Birds of Australia, fol., vol. ii., pi. 25. 



Reference. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. xvii., p. 168. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs. — Gould : Birds of Australia (1848) , 

 also Handbook, vol. i., p. 140 (1865) ; Ramsay : Ibis, vol. ii., 

 new ser., p. 327 {1S66) ; Campbell : Victorian Naturalist (1S88) ; 

 North : .\ustn. Mus. Cat., p. 40 (1S89), also app. ii. (1S90). 



Geographical Distribution. — Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, 

 South Australia and Ta.smania. 



Nest. — An excavation at the tennination of a tunnel, drilled into a 

 bank, usually of a river or creek, or into a mound of earth attached to 

 the base of an uprooted tree. 



